12 May 2015

The day begins overcast, but glory (as my sisters would call
it when they were kids) is seeping through. The time here at TIberias has been
quite nice and I now understand why Israeli families like to come up here – mild
weather, beautiful scenery, and water. We will leave this, however to go inland
– to Nazareth and Cana.

Our first stop is at “Mary’s Well”, or as the guide called
it on my first tour here, “an ancient water source.” That it most certainly
was, and we can speculate on whether or not Mary would have used it. The well
sits deep within the Greek Orthodox Church, where we literally walk into the
Divine Liturgy just to go down to the well. I guess that this happens all the
time and I guess that they don’t mind (at least I hope so.)One goes down a flight of stars into a hallway
that leads to the ancient water source, I mean, well. Lining the walls are some
beautiful Byzantine tiles. I looked forward to seeing them again.

I think that many pilgrims (or should I say, many tour
guides) miss the layered context of the sites that they want to see. The true
place is often set in the architecture of faith. It’s like the incisions of
crosses in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, or the footsteps worn into the steps
at Canterbury, or these beautiful cedars, dating from the Byzantine period,
here at the Church of the Annunciation. One of the collateral moments of beauty
comes when we leave the lower levels of the well, and climb back into the light
of the Greek Orthodox church. I am reminded of the reminiscences of Basil
Spence Pennington when he visits Mt. Athos. He tells how the monks would twist
up the chandeliers of the church and at the Sanctus in the Divine Liturgy let
them go, so that their spinning granted a sort of other-worldly vision. Or, as
the Lutheran Liturgy says, “give us a foretaste of the feast to come.”

Next we visit the Anglican church in Nazareth, Christ
Church. We are not the only tour group there. The former Bishop of Oxford is
leading one group and there is another group from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. A
good half of the congregation is English-speaking Anglicans, and the other half
is Arabic-speaking Anglicans. It makes for a veritable Pentecost – and we are
all speaking in tongues. After the Eucharist we are treated to tea and cakes
and a great deal of hospitality. We meet a man who lives in Nazareth and in
Arlington Virginia, he is an epidemiologist, and a pleasant host. The Anglican
Communion has retained some the better parts of its imperial past – namely the
familiarity and interest that all of its constituent parts seem to have in one
another. Arthur leaves all his Jordanian Dinar in the offering plate. “It’s in
their diocese,” he explains.

The big story in town is the interpretation of the
Annunciation at the Church of the Annunciation built and managed (like all Holy
Land sites) by the Franciscans. Like the Church at Kefer-Nahum, this church is
also built over a ruin – namely the house/place where the annunciation is said
to have happened.It is preserved in the
lower level of the church.

Again the tour ignores the context of faith that is built
around the site – beautiful Byzantine mosaic floors, and remaining walls
painted in faith. You have to look, and you can find this stuff. It’s humbling.
The church above is a bit overdone, with Madonnae contributed from many
nations. (The one from the US is absolutely hideous.) The Stations of the Cross
are very interesting, porcelain somewhat in the style of Paterino. All in all,
it’s just too much stuff.

One interesting place that survives my “taste test” is the
plaza that surrounds the Baptistery, and is elevated over the remains of the
ancient town. It is pure seventies modernism, but reads very well – elegant and
inviting. It surrounds the pilgrims with the story and invites them to walk
into it.

We go across the street to a little church that is the
“house of Joseph” Here is preserved an ancient mikveh, which was later used by
Christians as a Baptistery. I guess that Joseph needs his due as well. What is
interesting to me is that it is not so much the “house of Joseph, as it is an
ancient site of faith used in the Christian context.

Our last stop is in Cana, and yes, there is a church, and
yes, there is a water jar, and yes there are the surrounding shops filled with
olive wood, icons, thuribles with bells (I want one), and wine – naturally. We
go back to TIberias with as much context as we can handle, and the Spirit comes
to visit as we put our heads down for a nap.

Post Scriptum

I forgot a very important moment. While in the Church at
Cana, and at all the significant places at which we stopped, there was a
reading from the Scriptures and a prayer. Here at Cana, Andrew Nunn asked that
Arthur and I read the account of the Wedding at Cana.

10 May 2015

In his book, Beginning to Pray, Archbishop Anthony
Bloom wrote this about the earth:

“Humility is the
situation of the earth. The earth is always there, always taken for granted,
never remembered, always trodden on by everyone, somewhere we cast and pour out
all the refuse, all we don’t need. It’s there, silent and accepting everything
and in a miraculous way making out of all the refuse new richness in spite of
corruption, transforming corruption itself into a power of life and a new
possibility of creativeness, open to the sunshine, open to the rain, ready to
receive any seed we sow and capable of bringing thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a
hundredfold out of every seed.”

My
mother was born in Alma, Kansas, a small market town located in the eastern
hills of Kansas just before the break into the wide expanse of the prairie some
24 miles to the west. We used to go there when I was a kid, and as we
approached the town, driving through the rich soil of the farmlands that
surrounded Alma, one thought always came to mind. It was this – this was the
soil that birthed my mother, and in a sense, me as well. It was from this soil and others like it that I came into being.

That
same thought came to me as we began our pilgrimage to the northern tier at the
top of the Sea of Galilee. We drove
north from TIberias through Magdala (I had hoped we would stop their at least
honor the Apostle Mary – but we did not), and then past Tabgha to Kefer-Nahum,
or Capernaum.

If
there was a soil from which Christianity had sprung it was most certainly the
soil of this place. As we glanced around the countryside we could see that it
was well watered and lush – the perfect image. Somewhere I have a photograph of
me at the age of 30 standing in this same synagogue marveling at its beauty. It was the soil of thought for so much of my subsequent ministry. The synagogue is not from the time of Jesus, but much later, and it is not the main
attraction but rather the house of Peter that rests under buildings and
churches that were built on top of it. The current structure, Franciscan,
literally hangs over the site, with a huge hole in the floor so that pilgrims
can peer down into the house. If Bishop Spong is correct, it was the soil of
Peter that nurtured the Easter message of hope. So we do him honor here, with
readings and prayers. There is, however, more, and here I need to make a comment. Many of the sites that we have visited and will visit have a specious quality about them. They trouble me, for I think they hide the mystery. A fellow pilgrim gives me food for thought. "Think of them as you do the stations of the cross," she says. She is right - we are not honoring exactitude or even reality, but rather the significance and essence of the holy places.

The
next two sites are “The Primacy of Peter” and “Mensa Christi”. While standing
on the shore of Galilee, I notice someone casting nets – how perfect. For it is
in such a work-a-day place that Peter has the revelation about the true nature
of Jesus, and it is on the rock at the base of the altar in the church next
door, that Christ prepares a breakfast for his followers, and reveals himself
to them. I need to be reminded of the ordinariness of it all.

At
Tabgha we visit the stunning Benedictine monastery with its wonderful mosaics.
You can just glimpse the bread and fishes at the foot of the altar in the
picture below. The other mosaics portray wildlife and the struggle to live,
birds and centipedes, all strive bring life out of the soil of the earth.

At the
lakeside on the monastery grounds we celebrate a concelebrated mass, and I am
privileged to lead it. The gracious Benedictines provide proper vessels and
elements for our Eucharist.

Lunch
is at the convent located by the Mount of the Beatitudes Church, a product of
Mussolini’s megalomania – but none-the-less handsome in its own way. It reminds
me of the church that he had built on the grounds of the EUR in Rome, the
Church of Saints Peter and Paul. It’s a post-modern building before there even
was such a thing or concept. Take a Palladian chapel and strip it of all
ornamentation, preserving the mass of the building and you have a sense of
these churches. I remember being here forty years ago when we had a prayer
service in the church accompanied by the song of the birds.

One of
the readings during our pilgrimage, from Ezekiel, talks of streams of water
coming out of the temple, and forming a river that flows out to the nations.
Perhaps that is what the artist had in mind when he or she did the floors of
The Church of the Beatitudes.

We go
on to Ein Gev and grab a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee. In the midst, the
skipper shuts down the engines, and we drift in silence – a silence that
invites us to sleep in the stern of the boat as Jesus did. Earlier, Arthur
commented on the absence of motor noise. Now the silence is deafening and
welcome.

09 May 2015

We leave Jerusalem after Morning Prayer and Breakfast, and
take the opposite pilgrim’s route traveling from the Holy City to Jericho.
There are some stops along the way, such as an overview of the Monastery of
Saint George in the Judean Desert. There is no electricity, no cable car, no
roadway (that I can see) – these monks are truly at a remove. I wonder why it
sounds so attractive? They have survived Persians, Ottomans, and now Israeli’s
– more power to them.

We stop at the Jordan River for renewal of Baptismal Vows. The Country of Jordan is just feet away, and on the other side of the river soldiers sit guard
over their place for baptismal renewal. The Jordanian government has given land to
various ecclesial groups to build churches there, and one can see them just
beyond the greenery that lines a very muddy Jordan River.

Perhaps it is commerce that will bring warring peoples
together, or, more likely, that is what is keeping them apart. There are lots
of tourists on the Jordan side, some wearing white robes, preparing to be
baptized. On the Israeli side, actually on the Palestinian side, one can buy a
cold drink, an olive wood cross, a Bible, a bikini, and a white baptismal robe all at the
same store. As I sit and drink something cold, white doves come to see if I am going
to drop a tidbit or two. I look at them, and I try to look through them to the
symbol that they are.

Jericho is a poor city, but lush with agriculture, especially dates and citrus. We stop
for lunch at a restaurant in the shadow of a mosque, and so we are treated to the
sermon from the mosque via loudspeaker. I wonder what is being preached. I ask
around, “Has anyone ever read or listened to a Muslim sermon?” “No,” is the
answer. Perhaps we should.

We move on to visit the Sycamore Tree (Zachaeus). Such
futile grasping at a specious reality but missing the point and the mystery frustrate me. It doesn't stop here, however. The next stop is to gaze at the Mount of Temptation – same emotions. What I
would really like to have seen again is the tell at Jericho, the site of
Katherine Kenyon’s trailblazing work, but we drive by. At least the guide
mentions it, but we cannot see it.

This is the danger of a “pilgrimage”. Everything must be
ostensibly “holy”. Things that are indeed holy to me because they are the
context of the mystery of faith and human existence are apparently outside of
the box.

The trip up is interesting. The West Bank is under
Palestinian Control (although the road that we are traveling on is not!) There is
an effort to expand agriculture in these areas. Forty years ago when I was here
there was nothing here but mud brick refugee camps. Perhaps a level of progress
is being made.

The change at the border is startling, however. At the checkpoint,
two “officials” (or were they soldiers) enter, one just checking us out, and
the other holding an Uzi. It is very effective. The Israeli side is remarkably
different: shopping centers, community centers, good roads, even more
agriculture (dates, bananas, mangos, and avocados). Last here, I went up to Kibbutz Lavi, above Tiberius. Those
people had made the desert bloom – it was outstanding. That tradition seems to
continue in Israel. It is quite lush. Now if they can just share that talent
with their Palestinian neighbors.

Again, entering Tiberius, we could have had the opportunity
to stop by a first century synagogue with a marvelous mosaic floor with the
signs of the zodiac. That however, is a different kind of holiness.